Edgar Allan Poe Beyond Gothicism

by Hutchisson, James M.; Branam, Amy C.; Eddings, Dennis; Fisher, Benjamin F.; Goodwin, Peter; Hayes, Kevin J.; Jackson, Leon; Jebb, John F.; Phillippon, Daniel; Saltz, Laura; Walters, C T.; Wert, Justin

• ISBN13: 9781611490688
• ISBN10: 1611490685
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-05
• Publisher: University of Delaware Press

Summary

Most frequently regarded as a writer of the supernatural, Poe was actually among the most versatile of American authors, writing social satire, comic hoaxes, mystery stories, science fiction, prose poems, literary criticism and theory, and even a play. As a journalist and editor, Poe was closely in touch with the social, political, and cultural trends of nineteenth-century America. Recent scholarship has linked Poe's imaginative writings to the historical realities of nineteenth-century America, including to science and technology, wars and politics, the cult of death and bereavement, and, most controversially, to slavery and stereotyped attitudes toward women. Edgar Allan Poe: Beyond Gothicism presents a systematic approach to topical criticism of Poe, revealing a new portrait of Poe as an author who blended topics of intellectual and social importance and returned repeatedly to these ideas in different works and using different aesthetic strategies during his brief but highly productive career. Twelve essays point readers toward new ways of considering Poe's themes, techniques, and aesthetic preoccupations by looking at Poe in the context of landscapes, domestic interiors, slavery, prosody, Eastern cultures, optical sciences, Gothicism, and literary competitions, clubs, and reviewing.

Author Biography

James M. Hutchisson is professor of American and Southern literature and director of graduate studies in English at the Citadel. His most recent book is a critical biography of Edgar Allan Poe. He is currently working on a classroom anthology of Poe's work and a biography of Ernest Hemingway.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Poe's ôPhilosophy of Furnitureö and the Aesthetics of Fictional Design	p. 1
Race, Pirates, and Intellect: A Reading of Poe's ôThe Gold-Bugö	p. 17
Storytelling, Narrative Authority, and Death in ôThe Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazadeö	p. 37
The Man in the Text: Desire, Masculinity, and the Development of Poe's Detective Fiction	p. 49
Gothic Displacements: Poe's South in Politian	p. 69
Poe in the Ragged Mountains: Environmental History and Romantic Aesthetics	p. 89
ôKing Pestö and the Tales of the Folio Club	p. 103
Understanding ôWhy the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Slingö	p. 119
ôEyes Which Beholdö: Poe's ôDomain of Arnheimö and the Science of Vision	p. 129
ôA Species of Literature Almost Beneath Contemptö: Edgar Allan Poe and the World of Literary Competitions	p. 151
Poe's Early Criticism of American Fiction: The Southern Literary Messenger and the Fiction of Robert Montgomery Bird	p. 171
Mad Ravings or Sound Thinking?: ôThe Philosophy of Compositionö and Poe's Parodic Raven	p. 187
Index	p. 201
About the Contributors	p. 213
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